Senior housing planned for Denning Avenue in Winter Park as work begins on CNL office building nearby

Details emerged Monday about redevelopment plans for Winter Park's Denning Avenue, with CNL announcing anchors for its new office building and the city reviewing plans for senior housing nearby.

CNL announced that CNL Bank and the general contractor Brasfield & Gorrie will anchor the 85,000-square-foot office building now underway at Denning and Morse Boulevard on the former site of a state office building. Meanwhile, city officials are considering a proposal by Atlantic Housing Partners to construct 105 senior-housing units on the east side of Winter Park Village, also on Denning.

"In 24 to 36 months, the face of that area will change, and it will become an activity center between the [Martin Luther King Jr.] park and Winter Park Village," said Dori DeBord, executive director of the city's Community Redevelopment Agency. "It's exciting to see that area start to redevelop."

Atlantic Housing has proposed building apartments for the elderly on vacant land at Denning and Canton Avenue, Winter Park city planner Jeff Briggs said. The project would be developed with Federal Housing Tax Credits from the Florida Housing Finance Corporation and would make use of a nearby parking garage that was erected as part of an earlier, failed development.

As proposed, the apartments would be geared for residents ages 55 and over; financing restrictions call for seniors to reside in at least 80 percent of the occupied units. Also, 88 of the units would be set aside for residents with incomes of $24,000 to $40,000, according to the project's developers. The Winter Park Planning and Zoning Board will consider the proposal Dec. 4; it would then be scheduled to go before the City Commission Dec. 10.

A third Denning Avenue project involves Casto Lifestyle Properties and Winter Park-based Epoch Properties, which together are developing the 204-unit Residences at Winter Park Village, on land that used to contain a state motor-vehicle agency office.

Brasfield & Gorrie will construct the $24 million, three-story CNL office building on 5 acres where the McCarty state office building stood before it was razed during the past month. The city purchased the property from the state in 2005 for $540,000 but later swapped it with CNL for a 4.4-acre parcel farther south, at Denning and Orange avenues.

"The city felt, and we agreed, that they wanted Denning to be one of the gateway entrances into downtown Winter Park," said Paul Ellis, president of CNL Commercial Real Estate. "It was very attractive for us to be part of improving the gateway and being located next to Winter Park Village."

The building's two main tenants bring its leased rate to 60 percent. The building and adjacent parking garage are slated for completion during the fourth quarter of 2013. TD Bank is financing the project, while Hunton Brady Architects of Orlando is doing the design.

New office space has been a rarity in the Orlando area since the real estate downturn started in 2006. The GAI building, near downtown Orlando on South Street, was completed in 2008, and earlier this year South American investors completed a 268,000-square-foot building at South Kirkman Road and Carrier Drive in south Orlando.